What’s happening to Palestinians in Gaza staggers the mind. CNN reported on January 7 that on average ten Palestinian children a day have had a limb or limbs amputated, ten a day since October 7.
Most Gaza hospitals have been forced to close and patients wander in hopes of reaching another hospital even though these facilities are immensely crowded with few supplies. Al-Shifa in Gaza City has “so many patients on the floor you could barely move without stepping on somebody’s hands or feet.”
The UN relief chief Martin Griffiths says that hundreds of thousands are now undergoing famine. “Famine” is the gravest category of mass hunger, just up from “catastrophic.”
On the West Bank there are constant military raids, some using drones. Since Oct. 7 over 360 Palestinians have been killed and over 4,000 injured. And 95 of those killed were children. Israeli civilians known as “settlers” take part in the violence without any fear of consequence.
Yes, there were terrible atrocities committed on October 7 by Palestinians from Gaza but what has been done to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians rises to a whole other level of cruelty. Jewish Voice for Peace, with its over 700,000 members and followers, regards what’s happening to Palestinians as a genocide. South Africa is charging Israel with that crime at the International Court of Justice.
All the while the state of Connecticut invests millions of dollars of public employee pension money in hundreds of Israeli companies and in State of Israel Bonds. The total is now $95 million.
We invest as if nothing special is going on. We invest despite precedents when Connecticut sold off investments in companies because we were appalled by unjust or murderous actions by governments. These divestments took place in the 1980s with regard to apartheid South Africa, Northern Ireland in the ‘90s, Sudan in 2006, Iran in 2019, and with Russian businesses today.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, maintains a site with an app that analyzes investments. Putting Connecticut’s Israeli investments through the app gets 37 companies recommended for sale, for “divestment.” Some involve military work, some prisons, and some construction.
Construction seems innocent enough unless you understand many of these building projects involve participation in an international law-breaking. Since 1973 apartheid has been designated an international crime. Israeli-controlled area from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River has been seen as a zone of apartheid by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and a number of other leading human rights organizations (many of them Israeli). Building of walls, Jewish-only settlements and prisons make a company complicit with that apartheid system.
Among the 37 companies pointed out by the AFSC one sees Cellebrite, an Israeli digital intelligence firm that supplies law enforcement agencies, prison authorities, border security agencies, and repressive regimes around the world with hacking technologies, most notoriously to the Saudi government.
Shikun Limited builds infrastructure and residential projects in multiple illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. There’s Neptune Intelligent Computer Engineering whose legal name is NICE Ltd. It’s a surveillance company, specializing in phone, video, and internet monitoring. There’s Matrix IT LTD. Matrix contracts with the Israel Police and Prison Services. One of the company’s subsidiaries has provided training services to Israel’s National Police Academy. Bank Leumi is one of Israel’s largest banks. According to the AFSC it is deeply involved in the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories.
Finally, there’s Elbit Systems Ltd. It’s Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. AFSC reports that its weapons are routinely used in war crimes against Palestinian civilians. Elbit manufactures cluster munitions, weaponized white phosphorus, and flechette projectiles.
One Connecticut investment not mentioned by the AFSC app is Zim. It’s a shipping company and Connecticut investments in Zim are currently worth over a quarter million dollars. In 2014 when Israeli was bombing Gaza thousands of protesters in the port of Oakland kept it from unloading. In 2021 500 activists and dockworkers in Oakland refused to unload it cargo and a similar effort took place in Seattle. What it sends to the U.S. is unclear, perhaps its “security” and “intelligence” equipment which brings Israel such notoriety.
Connecticut’s treasury invests money in over a dozen funds, overwhelming those of public employees like state workers, teachers and municipal employees. Have these workers ever been asked if their money should be going to support Israel? Have their unions ever been notified? Connecticut law requires that the “social, economic and environmental implications” of investments be considered. Will Connecticut legislators consider these implications in regard to Israel, whose government is so complicit in international crimes? Will they make a law banning investment in Israel?
Stanley Heller is Administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace which was founded in New Haven in 1952. He’s also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace.